You know what they say about those that can't do...

Something most people don't know about me is that when I was younger one of the things I often thought about doing when I grew up was being a teacher. My favorite subject throughout my school years was always history (aka "social studies") and for many years I had it in the back of my mind that my destiny was to be a history teacher. It helped quite a bit that I had some unbelievably great history teachers in high school. Mr. Laperriere, Ms. Lavoie, Mr. Johnson, Ms. Dickson...every single one I had was fantastic and social studies was always the one class I looked forward to going to. I also used to read various history books on my own time which was a rarity for me. Alas, when I got to college history was more of a hobby than an prospective vocation for me as I found that studying history on that level was so much work that it became less enjoyable to me, ergo I never seriously considered majoring in it.

Years later when I had enlisted active duty Army, one of the reasons I did so was to get money for my Masters Degree, so I could go back to school to study - and make a career out of - something I was interested in. The Army has a program called "Troops to Teachers" which I thought was outstanding. Basically you get your degree and then they help you find a job as a teacher when you get out. I was really interested in it but with all the traveling I was doing I never found the time to start on my Masters Degree then I came to Italy and the rest, as they say, is history (pardon the pun).

Lately I've been thinking about my youthful dream of being a teacher and I gotta say, it still does appeal to me. I see young kids today who can't read or write on an academic level commensurate with their age and experience and it makes me cringe sometimes. The two subjects I was always interested in and was pretty good at were history and English. I could not do math and science to save my life but history and English just came naturally to me.

At 38 years old I doubt I'll ever become a teacher but I guess you never know what the future holds, right? After all, you know what they say - "Those that can't do, teach"...and let's face it, there's a hell of a lot that I can't do!